RE: PH Fleet Update: Merc C63 AMG And Leon Cupra R

RE: PH Fleet Update: Merc C63 AMG And Leon Cupra R

Wednesday 23rd March 2011

PH Fleet Update: Merc C63 AMG And Leon Cupra R

We pour most of the PH budget into a pair of fuel tanks for a cross-continent jaunt to Geneva and back


Who needs the autoroute?
Who needs the autoroute?

I must have done something right in the past six months (seems unlikely, but there you go). Last time I took a car to a major international motor show - last September's Paris show - PH editor Chris-R had me chugging up the autoroute in our endearing but rather hard-going PH Fleet Land Rover Defender.

they park you tight in Le Shuttle
they park you tight in Le Shuttle
But for our recent trip to the Geneva show I found myself pointing a three-pointed star towards the Channel Tunnel. More to the point, in the engine bay behind the grille badge was 6208cc of AMG V8. Yup, Chris-R had only gone and lent me his C63 AMG estate, the newest addition to the PH fleet.

In tow behind us were PH competition winners and fledgling Geneva show reporters Mike and Dan in the oh-so-yellow PH fleet Seat Leon Cupra R (you can read all about their Geneva exploits and their thoughts on the fast Seat in their own words here). Ahead of us lay 600-plus miles of road trip.

Ready to pour money into the PH Fleet
Ready to pour money into the PH Fleet
Only a nagging worry over press accreditation that had not yet arrived for our amateur scribblers (a worry because we had rather rashly accredited them under the bad pun-tastic pseudonyms of Mark Faure and Maurice Oxford) and the inevitable impending pain of high continental fuel prices, coupled with a thirsty V8 and a heavy right foot put a dampener on what ought to be a thoroughly pleasant way to spend a Monday.

A pleasingly empty series of British motorways and a hassle-free Chunnel run had us out into the grey dreariness of north-eastern France (is it ever anything other than sullenly overcast in that part of the world?) before we knew it and, once in France, the C63 munched away at the autoroute with gusto. It whisked us along in comfort, entertaining myself and snapper Steve Hall with a glorious V8 gargle and a sharp shove in the back on the stretches where there were no pesky gendarmes in sight.

Red Bull staves off autoroute drowsiness
Red Bull staves off autoroute drowsiness
The C-class also provided plenty of distraction at more modest motorway speeds, with plenty of functions to fiddle with - cruise control, an in-depth trip computer, a solid and surprisingly bassy sound system with full (and fairly easy-to-use) iPod integration and a sat-nav whose apparent inability to record more than one waypoint (although that could have been the users rather than the system itself) meant regular adjustments and refinements to keep us heading exactly where we needed to be going.

The main reason for this last fiddling was that, as France got more interesting, we planned to take a detour off the prescribed autoroute itinerary and indulge ourselves in some of France's quieter back roads.

D996: Good name, good road
D996: Good name, good road
Our choice for this was the D996 which, broadly speaking, runs from the main autoroute just south of Troyes in a basically direct line south to Dijon, with no town worthy of the name in between. The motorway, meanwhile, describes a banana-esque ark between the two cities. Theoretically, therefore - provided you have a good run of luck with the traffic and are prepared to push on a little - the D996 is a quicker, more direct route between the two cities than the motorway. And you don't have to pay any tolls. What more encouragement could we need?

The lightly trafficked road turned out to be a joy - Well sighted, and as near to empty as you could reasonably expect. And the C63, if not quite the perfect tool for this sort of road, certainly proved itself a more-than-capable companion. The soulful V8 fairly hurled it down the road, while tenacious grip and unerring stability allowed it to deal with the faster, more open sections with nonchalant ease at the sort of pace that would land you in a lot of trouble should one of the boys in blue spot your antics.

It was perhaps a little cumbersome for the tighter switchback sections, with all that weight giving it a slight tendency toward understeer, but a squeeze on the ESP switch and a judicious application of throttle could easily more than neutralise this.

Like we said. Good road...
Like we said. Good road...
But we had a job to do - to get to Geneva (well, Annecy) in reasonable time for an early start the following morning, so the back-road antics had to be cut short. As we rolled into Dijon, the motorway beckoned once more.

The good intentions didn't last long, however, as Steve spotted a wiggly red line in our European road atlas that promised more switchback fun. Unfortunately this turned out to be one of the main routes into Geneva and was clogged with frustratingly slow and heavy traffic. Worse still, it went over what was for all intents and purposes an Alp (yes, I know we were actually going over the Jura mountain range), and what had been balmy spring sunshine became unnervingly cold, with snow lining the sides of the road. But the road remained clear of the white stuff. We (eventually) made it into Annecy, having managed to queue up in every traffic jam in Geneva along the way, at 9pm CET, some 13 hours after we had set off.

So good we tried it in the other direction...
So good we tried it in the other direction...
Behind us, the PH Seat Leon Cupra R had done sterling work, not feeling dramatically outpaced even on the fastest, twistiest bits, although it did lose out in the sound-off through tunnels (no amount of turbo whoosh is going to out-shout 6.2 litres of AMG V8).

Where the Seat most emphatically won, however, was its touring range. Even with fuel consumption that rarely crawled beyond the low-to-mid 20s mpg, the Cupra never needed more than three-quarters of a tank when the C63 was gasping for a drink, despite the Merc's 11-litre advantage over the Seat's 55-litre tank.

The Seat enjoyed playing, too
The Seat enjoyed playing, too
Mind you, that probably says more about the Merc's hefty thirst - and its consequentially poor touring range of little more than about 280 miles - than it does about the economy of the Seat.

The return journey was broadly a mirror image of the outward leg, although we took the motorway straight out of Geneva rather than clambering back over the N5. We also made the brief but more or less obligatory stop by the old GP circuit grandstands at Reims for a few early evening shots.

As we rumbled beneath the English Channel we chatted about our thoughts on our respective mounts.

But all good roads come to an end
But all good roads come to an end
Mike and Dan were pretty pleased with the performance of the bright yellow Seat - and it certainly didn't disgrace itself at any point - but for its glorious V8, and its ability to combine huge cruising pace, space, and deeply hilarious back-road ability I wouldn't swap the C63 AMG for anything. Providing somebody else is paying for the fuel...

 













Author
Discussion

tomvcarter

Original Poster:

1,087 posts

192 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Can i ask what it cost you in fuel as i was looking to do the same trip in mine...?

14-7

6,233 posts

190 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Story said:
Even with fuel consumption that rarely crawled beyond the low-to-mid 20s mpg, the Cupra never needed more than three-quarters of a tank when the C63 was gasping for a drink, despite the Merc's 11-litre advantage over the Seat's 55-litre tank.
Shock as 2 litre engine discovered to be more economical than a 6.2 V8!

Sorry, couldn't resist getmecoat

Any videos of the tunnel running? Would love to hear that AMG engine at full throttle smile.


ChrisRolph

9 posts

157 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
I can see how you would have had fun in the C63 - it is a great car - I am looking to take mine up to North Holland and back through Germany to the "ring" and then down through Austria into Italy and lake Garda then off through France and into spain then portugal and up to santander for the ferry back... looking forward to the drive but not maybe the fuel cost! Mine averages about 17.1 at the moment.... good article! cheers

ganser

103 posts

198 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Nice pic of the Cupra in front of the shop

Johnpidge

588 posts

188 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Hard jobs - still someones gotta do itlaugh

Garlick

40,601 posts

239 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Ah, so THAT'S why Chris-R called the office to warn us of a £500 tyre bill is it Riggers?


Riggers

1,859 posts

177 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
tomvcarter said:
Can i ask what it cost you in fuel as i was looking to do the same trip in mine...?
You can, but I must admit that I don't have the receipts any more (gone to the PH bean counters) and I submitted my expenses with all the fuel as one. So while I can tell you it cost roughly £880 to fuel the two cars there and back, I can't give you a precise breakdown of which car drank what... but I'd say budget about £500-575 for fuel... (plus £75-ish for autoroute tolls)

Riggers

1,859 posts

177 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Garlick said:
Ah, so THAT'S why Chris-R called the office to warn us of a £500 tyre bill is it Riggers?

All in the line of duty, n'est-ce pas? confusedwink

Muzzlepop

17 posts

156 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
In one of the pictures the Merc's nearside foglamp is on, and I've seen this on a few Teutonic cars lately, having thought it was just a bulb at first. It's obviously not, so does anyone know why this is?

Riggers

1,859 posts

177 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Muzzlepop said:
In one of the pictures the Merc's nearside foglamp is on, and I've seen this on a few Teutonic cars lately, having thought it was just a bulb at first. It's obviously not, so does anyone know why this is?
Clever cornering lamps; helps you see round bends at night. Allegedly. I've always felt carrots were best for that, though. smile

trackdemon

12,149 posts

260 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Aaaahhhh.. happy memories, that was a fun but hectic trip! And yes, Riggers did scare me a bit with some of the sideways antics smile But in a good way evil We should put one of the Reims shots up as PotW!

Chris-R

756 posts

186 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2011
quotequote all
Riggers said:
Clever cornering lamps; helps you see round bends at night. Allegedly. I've always felt carrots were best for that, though. smile
There are just two things I don't like about the C63 - those cornering lamps coming on one at a time look a bit daft, don't they? The other is overly darkened auto dim mirrors all round and no obvious way to disable the function except a bit of sticky tape over the sensor.

Otherwise - it's just perfection! (Unless M-B offer us a CLS 63, that is...) smile

dirty_dog

676 posts

175 months

Thursday 24th March 2011
quotequote all
great article sounds like a fun trip!

Muzzlepop

17 posts

156 months

Thursday 24th March 2011
quotequote all
Cheers for that Riggers; seems to be a bit of a gimmick IMHO.

Riggers

1,859 posts

177 months

Thursday 24th March 2011
quotequote all
trackdemon said:
We should put one of the Reims shots up as PotW!
Not that you're biased, Steve. But not a bad call... wink

Tim16V

418 posts

181 months

Thursday 24th March 2011
quotequote all
Maths is not my strongpoint and I know that fuel gauges are estimates only in the last quarter, but it looks like the Seat did approx 210 miles off 75% of it's 12 gallon fuel tank at an average of say 23mpg.

The Merc did the same distance off 66 litres or 14.5 gallons so roughly equating to...er 14.5mpg? Wow.


brickwall

5,192 posts

209 months

Thursday 24th March 2011
quotequote all
I do this trip quite frequently. Time-wise a good run is 7 hrs Calais-Geneva, though 7hrs30 is more normal.

Cost wise, I reckon it costs c.£500 for the return trip in the Disco, including crossing the channel.

Keep the speed sensible within 150kms of Calais, but the Reims-Dijon section is normally a bit less clogged with Gendarmes.

Fixed speed cameras are generally marked with a big sign saying 'radar' about 2kms beforehand.

Appyarry

165 posts

180 months

Friday 1st April 2011
quotequote all
Drove to Kitzbuhel a couple of weeks ago in one. Probably the most expensive way of getting there, but also the most fun. Had a riot, we had massive respect from zee Germans as we ripped up there autobahns. most of the journey was spent at around 110-130mph mark with the odd blip to the magic 155. Averaged 18mpg.
Fuel and tolls: £685.69
Eurostar: £138
Total: £823.69

Worth every penny! smile